Development Notes - Build 23708

Few things have been looked at this week including the most recent change to the Secondary Artifact Relic Trait, the rate of income on Scheggia Fatua, some more boss testing coming up as well as Play with the Blues.

Blizzard

This week’s update contains more tuning and tweaks for several of the new features and content pieces in 7.2.

We’ve taken an initial pass at setting the rate of income for Nethershards, as well as the cost of items they can be used to purchase. While we’re planning to do some additional tuning next week once we’ve got a better handle on how it’s playing out, these numbers should be much more in-line with where we want things to be.

There are several tweaks to Artifact Traits, and a few adjustments to a couple Legendaries as part of our overall goal to bring them more in line with each other in value. We’ve also removed the mechanic that allowed Relics to have a second, randomized Artifact Trait bonus; we’ve shared more info on that change here.

We’re also planning to do another focused test on our new server technology this week. Tomorrow (Wednesday, March 8) at 3 PM Pacific we’ll be spawning in Withered J’im in Aszuna and asking as many players as possible to go fight him. We need to put as much strain on our servers as possible, so if you have the time, please join us! We'll have a blog post later today with more details.

This week will have another Play with the Blues event, this time focused around Arena Skirmishes. On Thursday, from 3 PM to 5 PM Pacific time, we’ll be on the PTR queuing for Skirmishes. We’re looking forward to seeing you in the Arena, and getting your feedback on how they’re playing.

Thanks again, and happy testing!UPDATE: Today's stress test is being rescheduled to a later date. We'll share additional details once we have the new date and time finalized.

March 7th Hotfixes

Blizzard posted some hotfixes, including some improvements to Mists of Pandaria Timewalking.

(Arcane) The Regalia of Everburning Knowledge 4-piece bonus should no longer sometimes fail to reduce the cooldown of Evocation when Arcane Missiles is cast after Arcane Blast.

Monk

(Brewmaster) Gai Plin’s Soothing Sash should no longer generate threat when it heals.

Warrior

(Protection) Mannoroth’s Bloodletting Manacles should no longer generate threat when it heals.

Player versus Player

Monk

Hot Trub’s damage is now capped at 20% of the Monk’s maximum health, will no longer critically strike, and is no longer being increased by the caster’s damage multipliers.

Secondary Relic Trait Change

Lore noted that in the next PTR build the final Order Hall research which caused relics to gain a second trait at random was replaced with one that grants Artifact Power rewards from World Quests to be doubled. Read on to read the reasons for this change.

Blizzard

In the next PTR build, you’ll see that we’ve replaced the final Order Hall research (which caused relics to gain a second trait at random) with one that grants a chance for Artifact Power rewards from World Quests to be doubled.

We’re doing this for a few reasons, the largest of which being that we simply weren’t satisfied with the current state of the system. There were several rough edges, including a few which were pointed out by your feedback. While these issues could be solved, we weren’t confident we could do so in a way that meets our standards in time for 7.2, so we’d rather shelve the idea for now.

That said, we definitely feel that there’s more that can be done with relics, and are discussing some possible ideas for a future Legion update. We don’t have anything to share just yet, but it’s something we’re thinking about. Thanks again for all the feedback on this topic!

PTR Druid Class Mount

Muffinus posted this morning that the Druid Class Mount will be removed from the journal temporarily. They also plan to add an NPC so that druids can change the look of their flight form.

Blizzard

Quick heads up about a change you'll be seeing in the next build.

We've found a few issues, and we're going to need to temporarily remove the Archdruid's Lunarwing Form from the mount journal. The option to change the look of your flight form will be available as an NPC in your class hall, operating similarly to the Glyph of the Sentinel.

We're working on getting a solution to you as soon as we can, apologies and thanks!

Also, since we're here, if you prefer it this way, please let us know.Note that today's build was made while we were in the middle of making these changes, so it's in somewhat of an incomplete state. In the next build, here's how it'll function:

- Completing the questline unlocks the form for all Druids on your account, but only enables it for that character.- Once unlocked, you can enable/disable it at will by talking to an NPC that's in the Dreamgrove (if you've completed the questline) and in Moonglade (always, for the alts).- When enabled, Travel Form will use the form of a Lunarwing Owl instead of a Storm Crow, and it will be rideable by party members. You won't need any additional keybindings or macros.- Glyph of the Sentinel takes priority over Lunarwing Form being enabled. If you have that glyph applied, you'll appear as a Sentinel.

Commento di darquis

Commento di Soeroah

At least that saves me, like, 30k resources on most of my characters! I was worried for a while there. I've got 12 toons.

Commento di Interest

on 2017-03-07T15:08:44-06:00

In the next PTR build, you’ll see that we’ve replaced the final Order Hall research (which caused relics to gain a second trait at random)

I'm sure there were ways to make it work out, but the fact the trait seemed semi-random in a sense (I recall it was reworked to only provide power traits at random but the disparity between even those is substantial) on top of the random chance of getting the relic to begin with adds an extra pass of randomness to get something optimal. This style of RNG has been criticized a lot this expansion, so I can see why it's getting changed.

There were several rough edges, including a few which were pointed out by your feedback.

I'm going to guess one was the random elements. I could see the fact relics become too powerful individually overall being an issue too (causing potential power creep).

That said, we definitely feel that there’s more that can be done with relics, and are discussing some possible ideas for a future Legion update. We don’t have anything to share just yet, but it’s something we’re thinking about. Thanks again for all the feedback on this topic!

I could probably think of a few things. A couple things that came to mind were:

Allow for a way to consistently change the trait bonus the relic provides to another one (rerolling). A current problem with the system is that some relics outright have undesirable traits and ironically, this static design may result in farming for Titanforged versions of older relics to obtain the best weapon, which in itself is another issue of randomness to consider.

Add a "prismatic" relic slot to the weapon that can be slotted with any relic that provides a trait bonus to the weapon. The relic provides no item level bonus (it would probably make the weapon too powerful), but it would provide a bonus to the trait. A weapon could even have three to emulate relics having doubled traits or relics could be forged together, creating a relic with two traits that only relies on two separate drop chances instead of a nested drop chance.

I wonder what other suggestions will come in regarding this.

grants a chance for Artifact Power rewards from World Quests to be doubled.

I had to read this a couple times and while it probably would've been fine for the proc to happen to all AP gains, having it happen on World Quests is probably fine too. The rewards usually aren't that great compared to another source like Mythic+ even when accounting for Emissary and it helps to keep World Quests relevant. The randomness will probably also better even out over time since there was a consistent reward to begin with, meaning it's more a matter of floating between 100% and 200% (+50% on average) instead of 0% and 100% (half on average, which is an inverse of +100%).

The latter form of all-or-nothing styled randomness or something within the realm of it (that is to say, a player is only farming something for the random chance and not the often poor quality consistent drops) doesn't feel remotely as good. There's a reason why in games like Runescape, content like Zulrah and Skeletal Wyverns are widely considered good money making methods compared to some others and it is because they have consistent drops that sell well (the "jackpot drops" also sell rather low compared to some others).

Commento di Tinibree

on 2017-03-07T17:18:20-06:00

I really hate the change to the druid mount, I was overjoyed to hear it did count as a mount unlike flight form, actually made me like it. I hope they fix whatever the problem is.

Commento di Istaro

on 2017-03-07T19:15:35-06:00

I really hate the change to the druid mount, I was overjoyed to hear it did count as a mount unlike flight form, actually made me like it. I hope they fix whatever the problem is.

Just curious why this matters to some—is it purely because of the "obtain X mounts" series of achievements, or is there something else?

Commento di artemis

on 2017-03-07T22:09:43-06:00

I rather see the Relic trait thing replace with being able to wear 3 legos

Commento di MrVolare

on 2017-03-07T22:56:05-06:00

Weird not-owl looks weird. the face is too small and flat, with the head cocked back at on odd angle. Priest mount has the same issue. It's just awkward looking.

Commento di Spectrence

on 2017-03-07T23:16:26-06:00

I really hate the change to the druid mount, I was overjoyed to hear it did count as a mount unlike flight form, actually made me like it. I hope they fix whatever the problem is.

It wasn't a change. it was causing a bug. they moved it over for now until it gets figured out. otherwise you wouldn't be able to use it at all on the ptr.

Commento di Wolrajh

on 2017-03-08T03:24:57-06:00

In the next PTR build, you’ll see that we’ve replaced the final Order Hall research (which caused relics to gain a second trait at random) with one that grants a chance for Artifact Power rewards from World Quests to be doubled.

Sounds extremely weak for a 30k ressources hall upgrade. Just a chance to go 'only' double on some low numbers AP reward. It's probably nice to have, but it won't be enough to make WQ relevant for raiders or MM+ players - except of course for the emissaries. It's nice for new players or casual players though, although it really doesn't live up to its position as current ultimate tiers.Thankfully it's just the PTR so it may still change. I think it would be better to have it affect all AP sources if it has to stay a "chance" rather than a 100% modification. Or make it always double all WQ AP rewards. With new traits coming, people are going to want improved means of getting AP, but it has to stay competitive with what we can get in MM+ dungeons...

Commento di Joker1313

on 2017-03-08T04:05:49-06:00

I am glad they ditched the 2nd trait from relic and I hope it remains that way...from what I understand it was random which 2nd trait will get a bonus so if that was true (and no reason to doubt what I've read so far) you can see how that would create problems....most specifically in loot distribution and the fact we would have yet another rng lottery affecting our characters...very poor idea from the start...

As someone mentioned I'd rather have the 3rd legendary enabled as well.